Hamburger-How much is too much?

[cfulhage]

Ollie loves hamburger, specifically the hamburger in goulash. I usually give her a couple of spoonfuls of goulash whenever I make it, about 3 or 4 times a month. Is this too much hamburger?

[Peregrine Harlequin]

I don't know when it comes to birds and hamburger. But I'd say it depends on how much is in each spoonful of goulash, how lean the meat is, what else Ollie is eating, etc.

But if you have nothing else to do, you could try to approximate a burger to bodyweight ratio. Guess how many grams Ollie eats at a time and scale it up to your own body weight. So if Ollie ate 1/2 an ounce of meat and weighed 3 pounds, that would be like a 150 lb. person eating 25 oz. of meat (a bit over a pound and a half). Now if you were that 150 lb. person, would you feel healthy eating a pound and a half of beef about once a week?

The numbers I picked were completely random, so don't think too hard about a 3-lb. bird eating 1/2 oz. of hamburger (plus the rest of the goulash!). I don't have a grey, so I'm not sure what they usually weigh, anyway. But until a better qualified person answers, this is how I'd do it.

And keep in mind that while a little protein and fat aren't necessarily bad, I don't think greys are natural carnivores. But it's late, so what do I know?

[Monica]

Generally speaking, birds eat more in weight compared to our bodies than we do! So although it may be a good idea to think in terms of how much they are eating compared to ourselves, we must also remember that generally speaking they eat more than we do!

Small amounts of hamburger sounds fine to me if fed in moderation!

[Rue]

...yeah, I agree...

...my Amazon is a meat eater...she gets so excited about meat! I give her a little bit of whatever we're eating (and since we don't eat meat daily, it's not too much)...

[cfulhage]

Well that's good news. Poor Ollie already had to cope with her beloved pomegranates going out of season- to take away her goulash would be grounds for suicide!!